


Magnets

by alphayamergo



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphayamergo/pseuds/alphayamergo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To say that the Pandorica was a magnet and time travellers were attracted to it was rather an understatement, Rory finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnets

Jack.

Rory met Captain Jack Harkness approximately thirty years after That Day. (It deserved capital letters because of all the big, life changing – or rather, universe changing – events. Like the stars going out. Or Amy dying.)

The man, in his 1940's long coat appeared in a flash of light and promptly groaned. "Time travel without a capsule," he complained to himself. "I am never doing that again." He glanced up and noticed Rory. "Well, hello handsome." He smirked to himself as if this was some sort of inside joke.

"What year?" Rory inquired, ignoring his words, stepping forward.

The man blinked. "What?" he asked, taken aback.

"What year are you from?" Rory asked again.

"Oh, I'm just playing tag with the Doctor," he replied. "I was in 2010 a while ago."

Rory's eyes widened almost comically. "You know the Doctor?"

"Yeah, of course I do, Rory." He cut off, paused and then exclaimed, "Ooooh! You don't know me yet, I suppose."

"I've never met you before in my life."

"Oh, well, I'm Captain Jack Harkness." He winked at Rory flirtatiously and took a step towards him. Rory stepped back.

"Nice to meet you, Captain," he said, slightly wary. Jack might know the Doctor – even be good enough friends with him to be playing tag through time and space for Pete's sake – but Rory had never met him before in his life. He wasn't quite sure yet if he was willing to have him so close to Amy.

All of a sudden he cocked his head to the side, listening for something, and said, "And the Doctor's found me, and starting to home in. I'll see you later, handsome."

He disappeared.

Martha.

"And this is the Pandorica," announced the museum curator. Martha tried hard as she could to not look too closely at the famous box. She just knew that if she did someone would yell at her. _Bloody 1913._

Sometimes, she absolutely hated the Doctor.

"Jones," said one of the older servants crossly, "stop looking!" Martha cringed internally. _'There it is.'_ "You and I are not here to see the exhibits. We are here to work." He marched off and Martha leaned back with a sigh.

"Don't worry," said a voice from behind her, "it's not always going to be like this. The women and the blacks will get their rights soon." Martha turned around to see a man dressed in Roman armour. Martha stared.

"Are you actually the Lone Centurion or are you just a fake, hired by the museum?" she asked.

He looked amused. "You're the first person to ask me that in a while. Yes, I'm the real deal. When are you from?" he asked, looking at the Pandorica. "You're a lot more forward then other black maids of this time. Nobody else would have dared to do that."

"I – are you a time traveller?" she asked incredulously.

He nodded. "I was born in Leadworth, 1989. I started travelling in 2010 with my fiance, Amy." He looked sadly at the Pandorica. Judging from the look on his face, Martha decided it was probably best not to ask.

"I'm from London, 2008, until I met a bloke called the Doctor. I travel with him, but he's had to go human for a bit." She gave the Doctor – or John Smith – a long look.

"Everybody I meet," muttered the Centurion, exasperated. "What do you mean, 'go human'?"

"It's something called the Chameleon Circuit," she explained. "I don't really know much else, but all of his Time Lord-y stuff has been locked up in a fob watch. "

"Chameleon Circuit," muttered the Centurion. "Good name for a band."

"What did you mean about everybody you meet?" asked Martha curiously.

He shrugged. "A lot of the people I've met over the years have known the Doctor. He seems to be how everyone gets into alien encounters or time travel."

"Including you?" she inquired. It was odd she could talk to this man so easily. Ordinarily it took longer for her to be able to talk with someone like she was now, but she supposed she'd been in 1913 for so longer that she would gladly talk to anyone who treated her as an equal.

"Including me," he confirmed with an easy smile. "He looks different now to how he did when I knew him, though."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "He mentioned something about that. Regeneration, I think it was called. When a Time Lord is dying, they regenerate so they look completely different."

"I guess that'll be it, then. I wonder if my Doctor's before or after yours?" The question was half to himself.

"Probably after. I can't imagine the Doctor wouldn't have mentioned that he'd travelled with the Lone Centurion. Honestly, he's always name dropping people. 'Oh, I married Queen Elizabeth, I know everyone'," she said in her best imitation of his voice, making him laugh unexpectedly. People turned to look.

"I'm Rory Williams," he told her.

"Martha Jones," she replied, and they shook hands.

(People stared. She got yelled at and put on suspension when they got back to school.)

(…It was worth it.)

Susan

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

Susan barely heard Ms Wright's voice as she looked at the Pandorica. It truly was very fascinating to see, but not just for the reasons it was to the human race. She found it incredible due to its alien properties and due to the fact it had only recently popped into earth's time stream. Her grandfather (and the Time Lords) didn't seem to have noticed it, but she imagined that was because they hadn't had to sit through several classes on the history and mystery of the box.

She glanced around. Susan could feel a sort of anomaly in the room, similar to old Time Lords in young bodies but not quite. She didn't think any of the humans had noticed it, but she put that down to the fact they hadn't had any training in sensing time anomalies or things like that. Even if Grandfather and her had left Gallifrey before she'd finished.

There! A man apparently in his twenties was the source. He was dressed as any security guard, and there was no obvious way to differentiate him from the other guards in the room. But she was certain he was the one. Quickly as she could without drawing the attention of Ms Wright or the girls in her class, she sidled over so she was standing by him.

"You're older than you look," she said.

The guard turned to look at her, shock written all over his face. "How on earth did you know that?"

"Not on earth," she corrected. "I learnt how to tell on Gallifrey."

"You're a Time Lord – Lady, I mean?" he asked. "I thought they'd been wiped out."

Susan frowned, mulling over his words. "Wiped out? No. The Time Lords would be impossible to wipe out. I don't think there's really any race that'd be capable of waging a war big enough to commit genocide on those from Gallifrey." She paused, and then recalled his initial question. "And no, I'm not a Time Lady. I didn't finish my instruction before we left Gallifrey. I'm technically just a Gallifreyan, but I know enough to have spotted you."

The man looked surprised at her reply but turned to look at the class again. "Why did you leave Gallifrey?" he asked her. His voice was genuinely curious, rather than simply making conversation.

"Grandfather and I… we didn't fit in there," she replied finally, after spending many moments searching for the right words to explain their decision. "We were too flighty, too adventurous, to fit in with the stagnant and ordered Time Lords."

"Sounds like the Doctor," murmured the guard. "He's a Time Lord, too," he added for Susan's sake.

Susan searched through her mind, trying to recall if she had ever met the man he mentioned. "I don't think I've ever met him," she replied in the end. "Though, I think Grandfather would have loved to have taken that as his title. Time Lords do that sometimes, you know. They use titles instead of names. It's supposed to symbolise being reborn as a Time Lord once you graduate from the Academy, as you are no longer a Gallifreyan and have no need for the name you were born with."

"Who's your Grandfather, then?" The guard was obviously trying to work out if he'd ever heard of him through the Doctor, so she answered.

"He goes by Theta Sigma."

The guard shook his head. "I've never heard of him. I supposed either the Doctor's never met him, or doesn't like him at all."

"I imagine they didn't like each other at all," said Susan. "Grandfather doesn't like many Time Lords, and most don't like him either – even Renegade Time Lords like ourselves."

He smiled at Susan. "I'm Rory Williams," he said.

"I'm Susan." She smiled back. "Susan Foreman."

"It's nice to meet you, Susan."

"Nice to meet you, too, Rory. It's very nice to be able to talk to someone about time travel and that sort of thing (aside from my Grandfather) without them thinking I'm mad." The words were said in good humour, even if it was quite frustrating to have people thinking that.

"Do you often get mixed up with dates and things?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "Why, just the other day I slipped up and thought we were already using the decimal system…"

Sarah Jane.

Investigative journalism could get rather boring sometimes.

It was mainly because she had already done such extraordinary things. No amount of conspiracies could really top what she had seen while travelling with the Doctor. But here was one of her best chances to see something properly interesting, even to Sarah Jane.

The Pandorica.

Nobody had any clue what it was, or how it had come to existence (or to earth, if you believed it was alien in origin – like Sarah Jane did), or whether the Lone Centurion was real. Sarah Jane personally believed the Centurion was probably real, and one person the entire way along, but most definitely wasn't human, or at least, not fully human.

And now that the Pandorica was back in London for the first time in ages – since the sixties, probably – and she had her one and only chance to see it. But of course, she couldn't go during the middle of the day with all the tourists, so she had managed to strike a deal with the museum to let her in after hours.

Accompanied by a security guard, naturally.

"Must be an interesting job," she commented to the security guard that was with her. "Guarding the Pandorica." She smiled. "The modern Lone Centurion."

A shadow passed rapidly over the man's face, so rapidly Sarah Jane could have imagined it. Suspicions immediately settled in.

"It is an interesting job," he replied finally. "I'm one of the permanent guards on it – I go with it where ever it goes."

"You'd see a lot of places."

"Yeah, I do. But after all the travelling I've done, some of it can get rather boring, I guess."

"I know how you feel," replied Sarah Jane. Silence lapsed between them.

They arrived at the Pandorica and Sarah Jane slipped away from the guard's side quickly to hurry up close to it. "It's magnificent," she breathed.

The guard smiled. "Yes it is." He looked sad for half second once more, and Sarah Jane's suspicions continued to grow.

Sarah Jane walked around it, coming to a halt towards the back. The guard hadn't followed her, so she had the Pandorica between herself and him. "Reckon it's alien?" she called.

"What?" The guard sounded startled.

"Well, I've heard a lot of theories that it could be alien in origin. Do you think it is?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely," replied the guard. Sarah Jane peaked around the corner to see him scratching the back of his head. He didn't look threatening. But that didn't mean he wasn't.

"I think it was a prison," said Sarah Jane, continuing her walk around it. She touched the side of the box, running her hand along the side. "The Lone Centurion was its guard."

"I don't think it was a prison," said the guard quickly – a little too quickly in Sarah Jane's opinion. "I think the Centurion was a guard, yeah, but not a prison guard. Maybe what's inside the Pandorica was so, so precious, and needed to be protected, and he couldn't stand it being left alone, so he watched over it until he died."

"Maybe," said Sarah Jane quietly.

"Do you see what I mean?" persisted the guard.

"I think I see everything quite clearly," murmured Sarah Jane, and rounded the corner to see the guard once more. "What year were you born in?" she fired off suddenly.

"Er – 1964. Why?"

"No reason," she said quietly. "Why did you start guarding the Pandorica?"

"To protect it." He paused and hurried on, "The Lone Centurion had to be protecting it for a reason, right?"

"Right."

"Is there – is there a reason for all these questions?" asked the man quietly.

"No. What was your name again? I don't think we were introduced properly."

"Rory. Rory Williams," replied the man. "And I know you're Sarah Jane Smith. You're quite famous. A very good journalist."

"Thank you, Mr Williams."

"Rory," he corrected immediately.

"Sorry, Rory."

Rory opened his mouth to say something, then cut off very suddenly like he was trying to remember something from very long ago. "Hang on - !" he exclaimed. "You were one of the Doctor's companions!"

Sarah Jane stiffened, wondering whether this was good or bad in this person's books. "I was," she confirmed somewhat reluctantly.

"You are the third time traveller I've met since I started guarding the Pandorica. And I've lost count of how many times I've met Jack, especially since he got stranded over in Cardiff, though he didn't know me yet then."

"We're attracted to it like a magnet," said Sarah Jane dryly.

"I'll say. I come from 2010, but then I got erased from time, then I was a Centurion in the Roman army, then I was plastic, and now I'm the Lone Centurion." He shrugged. "Except no one really knows that. It's easier to guard the Pandorica while not in armor."

"So – what you said about why the Centurion was guarding the Pandorica was true then, I take it?"

"Yeah. My, uh, fiance – I shot her. I didn't mean to, I wasn't in control of my body at the time. But the Doctor said that the Pandorica is such a perfect prison you can't escape from it even by dying, so it would take a sample of Amy's still living DNA and use it to revive her. He skipped ahead to the end of the process, which is some time in the nineties, I think, and I stayed to watch over her."

"Very romantic."

He shrugged. "I suppose. I don't really think of it that way, though." Rory's watch beeped abruptly. Sarah Jane sighed. Her time was up.

"Well, I suppose it's time for me to go." She walked over to him and shook his hand. "If you ever need to talk to someone, Rory Williams, come find me – Twelve Bannerman Road, I live at."

He grinned at her. "I will. Jack will probably want to meet you, too, actually, if he ever escapes from Torchwood."

Sarah Jane made a face. "I don't like Torchwood. Too many guns. And I generally side with UNIT in their squabbles, because I've got a lot of friends in UNIT."

They reached the door to the museum. "Hopefully I'll see you again, Sarah Jane Smith," said Rory.

"I hope so," replied Sarah Jane. "Goodbye, Rory!" she called as she started to walk away.

"Goodbye, Sarah Jane!"

Rose.

Rose bounced excitedly through the museum. This was probably the only time she had ever been excited to be in a museum, but the Pandorica was here. Everyone wanted to see the Pandorica. There was just something about it.

She had just turned ten and her mum had brought her and Mickey, one of her mates, to the museum to see the mysterious box. She had left Mum and Mickey behind a long time ago, rushing through the crowds and narrowly avoiding being knocked over.

"There it is!" she cried excitedly to no one in particular as she entered the room it was occupying. She flew towards it, and –

Promptly ran into a security guard.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed as she stood up. "Sorry!" She'd collided into him and sent him flying, having not expected it at all.

"It's alright," said the guard, picking himself off the ground.

"I'm Rose Tyler," she said proudly as he stood, sticking out her hand to shake. The man's jaw dropped open, staring at her in shock. "What is it?" she asked, worried.

"N – nothing," he assured her, shaking her hand. "I'm Rory Williams."

"Well, it's nice to meet you," said Rose. "You must have an exciting job, watching over the Pandorica."

He laughed. "Well, getting knocked over by little girls like you certainly keeps it fresh," he said.

Rose pouted. "Sorry!" she repeated.

"It's alright – I was just teasing," he told her quickly.

"Well, is it a fun job?" asked Rose after a moment.

Rory hesitated. "I wouldn't say it's fun, but it's a good job. I've seen a lot of things because of it."

"Rose!" shouted Mum's voice.

"That's my mum," said Rose. "I should go…" Just as she said this, Mum appeared from the crowd, towing Mickey behind her.

"Rose! Where have you been?" demanded her mother.

"I just wanted to see the Pandorica," replied the ten year old petulantly. "You guys were taking too long." Rory had a very hard time not laughing.

"I'm sorry, Sir," said Rose's mother, standing up. "I hope my daughter wasn't bothering you."

"It's fine," he replied. "I don't mind."

The woman smiled and tugged the children back off into the crowd.

"Rose Tyler," muttered Rory to himself, recalling the good things the Doctor had had to say about her. "Bad Wolf. Will you look at that?"

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on ff.net a few weeks ago, but I just signed up on here and felt like I had to upload something straight away...


End file.
